You don't trust the summer. It's the heat. You haven't slept well for weeks.

But now you're on a train, and the rhythm and the gentle motion start to tug at your mind. You close your eyes and prop yourself into the corner of your seat. Before long, the tightly wound mechanism of your consciousness relaxes, loosens.

Hanging in that sweet-spot between sleep and wakefulness, you release control. You're no longer driving your thoughts where you want them to go: you're sitting back and enjoying the ride.

The festival, brainchild of local producers Neill Roy and Roberta Gallinari from Harlequin Productions, has already attracted some big names, with actor and comedian Johnny Vegas and local comedian and writer Mark Steel signing up as judges.

Monday, 12 July 2010

Here's a quick review (for Orange) of tonight's first episode of The Silence - a four-part thriller by Australian writer Fiona Seres, which is being stripped across the week on BBC One.

As you may read below, I enjoyed the episode but wish it had focussed on the stress Amelia faces by being suddenly pitched into the hearing world. That part of the story is handled really well, but the coincidences that fuelled the thriller element seemed a bit too convenient.

Go to TV writing events and you'll hear everyone going on about how much they love "authored drama" – stuff with a strong personal voice. Last night's Dive (the first of a two-parter by writer/director Dominic Savage and co-writer Simon Stephens) certainly had a distinctive style, but it left me wondering if there was too much author and not enough drama.

Wednesday, 7 July 2010

"In the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.

"They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don't want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."

Last week we went to see Rear Window at the BFI, as part of the Grace Kelly season. It was – shamefully - the first time I'd seen the film, and although it didn't grip me on first viewing as much as some of Hitchcock's other films, a repeat viewing the following morning revealed what an impressive bit of work it is.

Friday, 2 July 2010

The one you make when you're rewriting a feature-length script and in a trivial bit of scene description on page 86, your main character unexpectedly finds himself with something in his hand that changes everything.

It raises the stakes, strengthens his motivation and provides a poignant bit of dramatic irony that fits perfectly. It also means you're going to have to go back to page one and retrofit the whole script.

So you emit a cross between the hoot of an excited chimp and the groan of an England fan who's just seen the Germans sashay leisurely through the John Terry-shaped hole in the team's defence.

Thursday, 1 July 2010

I'm sure that at some stage, more than one writer or producer has jotted 'Cold Feet for the Facebook generation' onto a post-it note. However, when one of those writers is Mike Bullen, the creator of that series, people sit up and take notice.